In May 1929, 24-year-old Ted K. Calvert was sentenced by the Stafford County Circuit Court to five years in the Virginia Penitentiary for forgery. Calvert was assigned to work at State Lime Grinding Plant No. 1 in Augusta County. On 6 October 1931, six prisoners, including Calvert, attempted to escape during a daytime shootout between the convicts and guards. Plant officials believed that the prisoners’ friends planted several guns in the limestone quarry where they were working. Two prisoners were shot by the guards and seriously wounded. Four others, including Calvert, escaped.

Calvert, using the alias James Livingston, was recaptured two months later in Bakersfield, California. He waived extradition and returned to the Virginia Penitentiary on 23 December 1931. On 29 February 1932, the Augusta County Circuit Court sentenced Calvert to an additional five years in the Penitentiary for conspiracy and attempted escape.

Upon his return to Virginia, Calvert was assigned to State Convict Road Force Camp 29. In a letter to Penitentiary Superintendent Rice M. Youell, dated 3 September 1932, Calvert promised “to make … read more »

Welcome to Mug Shot Monday! This is the latest entry in a series of posts highlighting inmate photographs in the records of the Virginia Penitentiary. Clifton Roberts and Sam Washington, the subjects of this week’s post, are linked by the stabbing death of Roberts by Washington in front of 800 prisoners in the Penitentiary in 1929.

According to Penitentiary Superintendent Rice M. Youell, Clifton Roberts was “the most dangerous Negro criminal serving time there.” The 27-year-old West Indies native was convicted of robbery in the Henrico County Circuit Court in January 1923 and sentenced to 10 years in the Penitentiary. Within four months of his arrival, Roberts lost 20% of his good time for falsifying his work ticket. In 1924 Roberts, now at the State Farm in Goochland County, threatened to kill two prisoners. Roberts attempted to kill a prisoner with a hammer but was stopped when another prisoner, John Byrd, broke a stool over Roberts’ head. Roberts later attempted to stab Byrd. In November 1924, Roberts twice escaped from State Convict Road Force Camp No. 5. He was recaptured and two additional years were added to his sentence for attempted escape.

Sam Washington, a 26-year-old from Greensboro, North Carolina, was convicted in Richmond City in 1926 on one count of store breaking and two counts of housebreaking and sentenced to 23 years … read more »

Charles Edwin Beckner, the ninth child of Winfield and Augusta Beckner, was born on 26 July 1898 in Tennessee. After Winfield’s death in 1902, the family moved to Richmond, Virginia. Charles probably was exposed to crime through his older brother Chester. Chester, alias The Tennessee Kid, was arrested numerous times between 1906 and 1916 for highway robbery, stealing, and fighting. He served several short sentences in jail but was never sentenced to the Penitentiary. Charles wouldn’t be so lucky.

Beckner’s first brush with the law came in March 1913 when he was arrested for theft. Beckner and three other boys were part of a gang of thieves who fenced their ill-gotten loot through Richmond fortune teller “Professor” Wilbur R. Lonzo. The Richmond City Juvenile Court sentenced the boys to the Laurel Reformatory in Henrico County for an unspecified amount of time. In September 1918 Beckner completed his World War I draft card in the Portsmouth City jail. He was arrested on 9 May 1920 for committing … read more »

Welcome to Mug Shot Monday! This is the latest entry in a series of posts highlighting inmate photographs in the records of the Virginia Penitentiary. Frank Perry, the subject of this week’s post, was a twice convicted felon who killed himself in front of a courtyard filled with guards.

In December 1899 Frank Perry, a North Carolina native using the name Frank Swann, was sentenced to three years in the Penitentiary for stealing and housebreaking. He was discharged on 15 July 1902. Perry didn’t stay out of trouble for long. The Newport News Corporation Court in September 1904 sentenced Perry to two years in the Penitentiary for felonious cutting. An additional five years were added to Perry’s sentence since this was his second conviction.

Monday, 6 July 1908, began as any other day at the Penitentiary. At 6 a.m. the guards issued the call for the prisoners to form the breakfast line. As the cell doors opened, Frank Perry began to fight with this cellmate, Upshur Lewis. One of the guards separated the men and ordered Perry to the courtyard. According to the Richmond Time-Dispatch,Perry appeared to comply with the guard’s order when he suddenly “placed his hand on the railing and dived over twenty-five feet to the stone floor.” His head hit the floor violently, knocking Perry unconscious; he also … read more »

Welcome to Mug Shot Monday! This is the latest entry in a series of posts highlighting inmate photographs in the records of the Virginia Penitentiary. Walter E. Stiars, the subject of this week’s post, is in essence the father of Mug Shot Monday. His daring 1906 escape from the Virginia Penitentiary, eerily similar to Andy Dufresne’s in the film The Shawshank Redemption, was the catalyst for requiring that prisoners be photographed.

On 28 February 1905, the Manchester Corporation Court sentenced Walter E. Stiars, age 30, to eight years in the Virginia Penitentiary on two counts of breaking and entering. Penitentiary officials considered Stiars dangerous. They assigned him to work in the office of the Davis Boot and Shoe Company in order to keep him under constant surveillance and away from any tools. The noon dinner bell rang as usual on Saturday, 16 June 1906. During roll call, Stiars did not answer “adsum” when his name was called. A search of the prison revealed he was not on the premises and Penitentiary officials presumed he escaped sometime on the evening of 15 June. Or had he? As a precaution, extra guards were posted along the outer walls. Penitentiary Superintendent Captain Evan F. Morgan was confident Stiars would be captured. “We expect to land him,” Morgan told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on 17 June, “and … read more »

Craig Moore, State Records Appraisal Archivist, died on August 13 after a lengthy battle with cancer. While long time readers of Out of the Box will know Craig from his many posts, he was anonymous to most researchers conducting archival research at the Library of Virginia. For most of Craig’s 15 years at the Library, he worked behind the scenes in the State Records section making some of the Library’s most significant collections accessible. His work will contribute greatly to understanding the state’s history for generations.

I met Craig in 1998 when he joined the Library’s Archives Reference staff. A year later we both started new positions in the State Records section and became “office mates.” Craig and I shared an office which was unusual in our (then) new building. Sharing a workspace can be a minefield of personality quirks. For us, it worked and we became good friends. We had similar interests (baseball, football, South Park, listening to Howard Stern, fantasy football, the music of Genesis, etc.), the same sense of humor (potty jokes made us giggle like school girls), and a love of history and our work as archivists. We laughed at the names he would see in the records such as: Bittle C. Keister, Reekes & Goode, Attorneys at Law, Garland P. Peed, M.I. Snoody, and many others that … read more »

On 16 March 2013, Virginia’s Executive Mansion celebrated its 200th anniversary with a birthday party at the Library of Virginia. The highlight of the event was a public screening of a new Mansion documentary, First House, produced by Blue Ridge PBS in partnership with Appeal Productions. The Library of Virginia and Citizens’ Advisory Council for Interpreting and Furnishing the Executive Mansion also published a commemorative book, First House: Two Centuries with Virginia’s First Families, written by Mary Miley Theobald. Out of the Box decided to jump on the bandwagon with a post highlighting some of the archival records about the Executive Mansion at the Library.

Former Virginia state Senator William B. Hopkins Sr. died on 11 December 2012 at the age of 90. During World War II, Hopkins joined the Marines and saw combat in the Pacific theater of the war. Hopkins, a Democrat, represented the Roanoke area as a state senator from 1960 to 1980 and was Senate majority leader from 1972 to 1976.

Hopkins’ service to country and commonwealth is well documented in the collections of the Library of Virginia. A copy of his World War II separation notice is in the records of the Virginia World War II History Commission. Numerous collections related to the Virginia General Assembly document his legislative activities. Senator Hopkins is best known for chairing the Commission on State Governmental Management from 1973 to 1978. The Commission, also known as the Hopkins Commission, made recommendations to reorganize and modernize state government. “That’s what he was most proud of,” his son William Hopkins Jr. told The Roanoke Times, “the work of the Hopkins Commission and how it improved state government.” The records of the Hopkins Commission, both published reports and 30 cubic feet of manuscript material (accession 29887), are part of the Library’s collection. Hopkins may no longer be with us, but his legacy lives on at the Library of Virginia.

On 6 November 2012, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were re-elected President and Vice President of the United States. Or were they? As we all learned in our high school government class, the President and Vice President are officially elected by the Electoral College. Under this system, established by Article II and the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution, voters in each state on Election Day are actually choosing a candidate’s slate of electors to serve in the Electoral College. Under Chapter 1 of Title 3, United States Code (62 Stat. 672, as amended), the Electoral College meets and votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. The 2012 Electoral College will meet on 17 December to cast Virginia’s 13 electoral votes for Obama and Biden.

The Library of Virginia has a variety of records in several collections (Secretary of the Commonwealth, Office of the Governor, Virginia General Assembly, etc.) related to the Virginia Electoral College from 1789 to 2008. Today, copies of the Certificate of Ascertainment and Certificate of Vote are transferred to the Library by the Virginia State Board of Elections. The Certificate of Ascertainment lists the names of the electors appointed and the number of votes cast for each person during the general election. The Certificate of Vote lists the totals for the Electoral College. Additional … read more »